Time
for Silence
“Even
though I know good and well that a rhythm of silence, in my own sacred space,
is what my soul most needs, it is the very thing I most easily sacrifice.”
Tracy
Balzer (A Journey of Sea and Stone, p.30; Broadleaf Books, 2021)
It’s
easy, isn’t it, to have so much on your plate that setting aside time for
silence, for quiet reflection, gets shuffled to the back burner. I remember when
my children were young how hard it was to even make time for a bath, let alone
meditation. Even now, when I have something to do early in the morning, quiet
time, which is when I write, gets sacrificed. It reflects how we put our
spiritual and emotional lives in a place of secondary importance. It is also
why we are such an anxious and worried culture. Especially now, with the fourth
surge of Covid hitting us hard, with the withdrawal of our troops from
Afghanistan, and the horrifying scenes of desperate people at the airport in Kabul,
we need more than ever to take time for silence and prayer. These are hard
times. These are days when we need to be grounded and clearheaded and giving
ourselves silence breaks help with that.
Tracy Balzer,
who wrote the book quoted above, made the trip to Iona in Scotland—one of the
agreed upon “thin places” on the earth. Iona is a difficult place to get to,
which seems to be typical of sacred sites—think of all the temples in southeast
Asia, up trails, steep climbs, the march to Mecca that Muslims make, the
pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, Ireland on St. Patrick’s feast
day. Effort and sacrifice are part of the spiritual journey.
But you don’t have to
make a pilgrimage to that mystical Scottish island to create the quiet mind
needed to survive these tumultuous times. You only need to set aside time—even 10
minutes—to sit quietly, allow yourself to still, breathe and clear the
chatter inside your head. Invite your body to settle into comfort, to rest. If you can do this
outside even better. The sounds of nature will entrain your brainwaves and calm
you. Right now, here in Alabama, the cicadas are singing so loud, that being
quiet yourself is not a problem. Let yourself off the responsibility hook for
just a little while. Everyone around you will benefit. And your soul will
rejoice!
In the Spirit,
Jane
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